Inspection (4)
At my question, Beigong Boyu rolled his eyes this way and that, gauging how he ought to answer.
Watching him squirm, I added a word of warning.
"You're not thinking of lying to me, are you?"
"N-no, of course not! How could I ever dare!"
"Good. So? What's your answer?"
Pressed by my urging, Beigong Boyu shut his eyes and tensed his entire body.
...Tense up? What exactly is he trying to do right now?
He looked for all the world like he might lunge at me at any second, and Seo Yeo's gaze went cold.
"And if I had done such a thing, what would you do to me?"
"What would I do, you ask?"
You call that a question?
"What do you think happens to a bastard who sells my name without permission and lines his own pockets with it?"
"……"
"Where do you suppose every last one of those bastards is right now?"
There had been men in the past who mistook a little kindness from me for a license and helped themselves to my name. Every single one of them paid the price, no exceptions. Most ended up as slaves, and the worst few lost their heads entirely.
If they had spent my name for the public good, I might have let it slide. But the ones who used it however they pleased were another matter altogether.
Purely for themselves. For their own pleasure and their own property—that was what all that nonsense had been for, and it was honestly laughable.
"This is truly the last chance. Dodge the question this time, and understand that you're a dead man."
I looked Beigong Boyu in the eye and spoke.
"Was it you?"
At my repeated questioning, Beigong Boyu straightened up and gritted his teeth.
"So this sly bastard knew everything all along and was squeezing me on purpose!"
"Oh? Your tone just changed."
"That's right! This venerable elder was a little short on coin, so I loosed my men on the roads! What of it!"
Having apparently decided to come out utterly shameless, Beigong Boyu rose from his knees and faced me head-on.
Then he scuttled backward and tucked himself in among his soldiers. So the reason he'd tensed up hadn't been to attack me at all—he'd simply been bracing to hide behind his men.
If he had actually charged at me like that, Seo Yeo's Chu Heaven Sword would have split him in two. What a pity.
I couldn't tell whether the man was sharp-eyed or just plain lucky.
The moment Beigong Boyu fell back, the soldiers who had us surrounded began to close in slowly, leveling their spear points at us even as they trembled with fear.
"Right. Did you think I wouldn't notice? You must be banking on Han Sui's soldiers waiting outside—but if I kill you here, it all amounts to nothing!"
He wasn't a complete fool after all; he'd caught on to the Han Sui troops I'd secretly stashed out of sight.
Well, with that many men, anyone who failed to notice them would be a genuine idiot.
"You don't even know your own place, yet you dare scheme so brazenly. I'll make you regret crawling in here without an army."
Even as I beckoned to Lü Bu with a flick of my hand, the man just kept rattling on, apparently convinced he'd already won.
"Since I've come this far, I'll finish off Han Sui, who's fated to fall here anyway! And Luoyang will be ours too!"
Where did he even get this confidence?
A man who couldn't even crack Tianshui and would crumple before Xu Rong—and yet his confidence alone was world-class.
"Boys! Bury that high-and-mighty General-in-Chief six feet in the ground!"
At Beigong Boyu's command, one soldier spoke up in a quavering voice. He was the man who had watched, in real time, as Seo Yeo cut down the gate guards.
"A-are you sure about this? The women near the General-in-Chief had strength that was anything but normal…."
"Silence! Spout that nonsense again and I'll kill you first!"
"Goddammit……."
What a temper. I honestly couldn't fathom how a man that foul-tempered had ever ended up groveling flat before me.
Lü Bu watched the encircling soldiers inch closer, then turned to me.
"Can I cut loose now?"
"Go ahead."
I looked at Beigong Boyu, standing off at a distance.
Taking in the man—who hadn't even bothered to mount a horse, yet still watched us with that same brazen, self-assured air—I gave my order.
"I've got plenty of questions for him, so keep him breathing."
"You got it!"
With my clear answer in hand, Lü Bu stepped forward, smiling.
Beigong Boyu, sheltered behind his guards, sneered at her with contempt.
"No matter how mighty you bitch think you are, there's no way in hell you can punch through this many soldie—"
"Gyaaargh──!"
"Uwaaagh─!"
"…There's no way……?"
Lü Bu lightly batted aside the spears raised to bar her charge and sowed pandemonium through the soldiers' ranks.
The men scrambled every which way, thrusting out their spears in a frantic effort to keep her at bay, but every bit of it was wasted.
At the sight of Lü Bu suddenly far, far closer than she had been a heartbeat before, Beigong Boyu's face went slack with stupidity.
"There's no way…. There's just no way…?"
Men seeing Lü Bu for the first time always reacted the same way.
'Even if the Peerless Under Heaven is strong, how strong could she possibly be?'
'There's no way one lone woman can turn a battle around!'
They trotted out those cookie-cutter reactions, then went huh? at her impossible strength, panicked, and lost.
Maybe it was because she hadn't yet crossed blades with the true heavyweights among the warlords.
Except Dong Zhuo had been among them, so that theory didn't quite hold.
To be perfectly honest, Lü Bu was brilliant at fighting and nothing special at commanding troops.
But her brilliance in a fight was so colossal that it drowned out everything else.
Seo Yeo, for her part, silently held the ground at my side and cut down every soldier who came near me.
"Khhak!"
Whether by the grace of fortune, one man managed to somehow turn aside Seo Yeo's strike—but he couldn't overcome the force riding in her blade and was hurled clean off his feet.
The airborne soldier didn't die, but that was all; he lay where he'd landed, squirming, unable to rise.
Martial might that, if anything, surpassed Lü Bu's rather than falling short of it.
The soldiers circling behind me, aiming for my life, were likewise stonewalled by Seo Yeo and left flailing.
"F-fuck this! The boss got us into this mess, so the boss can dig us out!"
"You dog! Where do you think you're going!"
They still had numbers to spare, and they were already running?
Just how stingy had he been with his men, that their loyalty scraped the bottom of the barrel like that?
As if to prove how brutally he normally treated his subordinates, the moment the battle tilted against them, his soldiers began to bolt.
The original plan had been to punch through the formation quickly, take Beigong Boyu's head, and withdraw.
For all Lü Bu's greatness, no single person could bring down an entire city alone.
But from the look of things now, the moment Lü Bu's blade took Beigong Boyu's neck, the city seemed set to topple on the spot.
Beigong Boyu harangued his fleeing men, trying to force them to hold the line, but it meant nothing.
Too many of them wanted to run, and Beigong Boyu was only one man.
"What do you even do to them normally, that your soldiers are like this?"
With the Sky Piercer Halberd propped on her shoulder, Lü Bu sauntered closer, sneering at the spectacle.
Beigong Boyu, who didn't even have a horse beneath him, seemed to realize that flight was pointless, and didn't stir from where he stood.
"So, what'll it be? I was told to keep you alive, so I won't kill you."
Lü Bu leveled the Sky Piercer Halberd at Beigong Boyu and smiled.
"But if you resist, I'll chop off one arm and one leg and drag you back anyway."
"……"
"And I'm not speaking in metaphor. I'll tie you to an actual horse and drag you the whole way."
Wouldn't that kill him, though?
Before I could keep the doubt off my face, Beigong Boyu opened his mouth.
"…Do as you like."
"Short answer, huh?"
"……I surrender. Willingly."
Beigong Boyu knelt, utterly deflated.
Lü Bu rapped her halberd against his helmet, twice. However light the blows looked, his whole body wobbled with each one.
"Then get up and follow me."
"Y-yes…."
Having apparently abandoned all thought of resistance, Beigong Boyu trailed obediently after Lü Bu.
Just then, far in the distance, I spotted Han Sui leading a column of horsemen at a gallop toward the city.
"General-in-Chief! I've come to your aid…. Huh?"
Riding up in a desperate hurry, Han Sui took stock of my situation, and his face went blank.
Somehow he'd known I was fighting, and had come running with reinforcements like a man possessed.
"G-General-in-Chief. What in the world…?"
Han Sui drew up beside me, swept his gaze over the scene once, and asked, dumbstruck.
"Exactly what it looks like."
"I-is that so?"
I put my question to Han Sui, who was still staring at Beigong Boyu.
"How did you know I was fighting?"
"Out of concern that some harm might befall Your Excellency's person, I discreetly stationed soldiers nearby."
"Oh."
Come to think of it, I had indeed seen a Qiang rider frantically driving his horse off somewhere the instant the fighting broke out.
Even if things had gone sideways, Jincheng would never have held—Han Sui's reinforcements would have kept arriving wave after wave until the city fell regardless.
I jerked my chin toward Beigong Boyu, still thoroughly deflated.
"That's Beigong Boyu, right?"
"It is."
With Han Sui's confirmation secured, there was nothing left to hesitate over.
"Good. Then get into Jincheng, bring the soldiers under control, and kill anyone who resists."
"By your command."
I watched Han Sui march into the city with his men, then dismounted.
When I plopped down on the ground nearby, Lü Bu, at my side, said with obvious delight.
"This'll make me even more famous, right?"
"Probably."
The tale would run something like, 'The Peerless Under Heaven, who single-handedly reclaimed a city held by foreign invaders!'
Judging by the goofy, giddy grin on her face, merely imagining it was a treat.
That appetite for a good name of hers was so very Lü Bu.
"……"
Seo Yeo, wholly indifferent to whether Lü Bu carried on or not, kept her focus fixed on one thing alone: guarding me.
Just a personal observation, but when on earth did that woman ever rest?